Tajna

Learn what is true in order to do what is right.

-Thomas Huxley

"A.I?...Pppbbbbbbb!" The old man pursed his lips and made the raspberry sound in response to the AI dating ad playing on the wall-mounted video screen. "More like A. Lie! That's your 'April Fool' right there! AI doesn't know joy. It doesn't feel pain. It doesn't experience laughter. It doesn't feel love."

It was April 1st, and the old man sitting by himself at the end of the bar, spouting off to no one in particular, was obviously drunk, and quite possibly crazy. Under normal circumstances, I'd have been inclined to ignore him. But these weren't normal circumstances. First, there was what brought me here. There was also that glance the bartender shot towards him, so quick it was nearly imperceptible.

I gave it another 20 minutes as I looked around the place to try and take things in, get the feel, and wait for my moment. The decor of this place, The Stranger's Room, was broadly what I expected, sort of a late Victorian era English pub, compromised by modern lighting, replica furnishings, and of course by the video screens. I nursed my beer with half an eye on the screen that had prompted the man's outburst. My phone went off. I looked. It was a text from my mother.

"Happy Birthday! Call me when you get a chance. No special hurry, but please don't forget."

I put the phone back in my pocket. I would deal with mom later.

The video screens in the bar switched over to basketball. I saw the opening I was looking for and took it, directing my comment toward the old man whose outburst I'd noticed earlier. He was only about three stools down from me.

"How about those Bucks, man? You think they're gonna finally get it this year?"

"God I hope so."

"I bet you remember the last time, don't ya?"

"Oh yeah, over thirty years ago with Giannis. That was a great team. Hell I was born the year they won it the first time, 1971 with Kareem, except he was known as Lew Alcindor way back then. If they take it this year, I might just go out with 'em too. Ha!"

"No kidding! I was born in 2021, the same year as the last one." I lied a little. I was really born in 2022. "Let me buy you a beer. You can tell me what you remember about the 2021 team. I've got the same name as their star...except that's my last name instead of my first. My name's Giannis, Ted Giannis." I slid down to the stool next to him and stuck out my hand. "Whaddaya say?"

"OK Ted, you're on. Beer's worth a story, I s'pose. Everyone calls me Z."

I wasn't near as much of a basketball fan as I pretended to be that first day, and Z, or what was left of him, was despite appearances still far more than an old drunk holding up the end of the bar.

We talked basketball loudly and long enough that the bartender began to pay us no mind. Then I switched it up.

"You a regular here, Z?"

"I suppose you could say that. Been coming here almost 20 years now, ever since I

retired

." He put a little extra emphasis on the final word, as if there was extra meaning behind it, but offered no explanation.

"Oh. What did you used to do, before you retired, that is?"

"Computers mostly. Probabilistic analysis of natural language models. Got my PhD in machine learning. That's what we used to call it back in the beginning. Now they call it A.I."

"Shit, Z. That's pretty heavy stuff. And it sounds like you were in on the ground floor! Forgive my asking, but how come you're here, and not set up with your own private island somewhere?"

"Long story. But short story is, I got fucked, metaphorically speaking."

"Sorry, man. I bet that's a helluva story too. Buy you another beer if you want to get into it. I got nothing but time."

"Good-looking kid like you? Ain't you got a cute little wife to get home to? A girlfriend or something? Boyfriend? Shit, I don't care. Ain't none of my business."

"Nope. Not me. I'm kind of a lone wolf, a bit of a seeker. That's what led me here to this bar. I grew up on those old Sherlock Holmes stories. If you're a regular here you must know about the significance of the name."

Z's eyes suddenly stopped swimming lazily and narrowed to focus in on me. "If you're hoping to find Mycroft and sundry boffins of Whitehall communing silently in the back, I can assure you, you will be disappointed."

Clearly he got the reference. In the Holmes stories, The Stranger's Room was the only place within Mycroft's exclusive Diogenes Club where people were allowed to speak. "I'd settle for even the barest hint of an approximation," I offered.

"Tell me Ted, what did you say it was that you were seeking?"

"The truth, of course. But first I need to find an honest man."

"Well, Diogenes, you won't find one here."

"I think maybe I already have. Max Menschlich told me about this place."

Z's eyes widened ever so slightly at the mention of the name. "Ted, did the bartender take your I.D. when you bought those beers?"

"Yeah. Sure he did. Lots of places card everybody these days. What of it?"

"Nothing. You just look young is all. Buy me another beer. I gotta go take a leak."

Z got up and headed toward the back, where I presumed the bathrooms were. I got the beers and waited. Maybe he had prostate problems or something, cuz it took him a few minutes before he returned.

"Thanks, kid." Z lifted his glass and took a sip. "When you head back to get rid of that beer, take a look at the sign in the corner, underneath the lamp, if you still want to play Diogenes, that is."

"OK, I will." I replied. "Diogenes, you say. My favorite fun fact about him is, aside from all that searching for an honest man stuff, he was also famous for masturbating in public."

"Well in my book, his lack of inhibition only serves as testament to the purity of his search for truth."

I raised my glass to Z, saluting his banter. It all seemed a bit cryptic. But that's sort of what I was hoping for. As I pondered, I realized I did, in fact, need to take a leak. The beer had caught up to me too. I got up and walked toward the rear of The Stranger's Room. Amidst all the other English pub decor, I noticed a few items that were Sherlockian hung on the walls. There was a houndstooth coat, a bit further down there was a deerstalker cap and a pipe in a framed case. There was a prominent painting of a large and vicious-looking hound overlooking the fog-bound moors. Another frame held a quotation attributed to Arthur Conan Doyle, "Any truth is better than indefinite doubt."

As I found the short hallway that led to the restrooms. I saw the sign at the end, under the lamp on the wall, all done up in fancy script letters on a yellowed, parchment-like background. The sign said, simply, "Seek Truth." Z had made a point of referencing that lamp "if I still want to play Diogenes." I took the hint, and lifted the lamp a little. The fixture didn't move much, but it definitely moved, and it didn't feel like it was just because it was loose. I half hoped a secret door would open up or something, but none did. I pushed through the regular door and went in.

When the door closed, I noticed that behind the restroom door, there was another door. It appeared to be possibly a janitorial supply closet. Not too surprising or out of place in an older building such as this. Then I heard a click, and the closet door opened, just a crack. I couldn't quite see in. "Ted Giannis?" A woman's voice inquired.

"Yes."

The door opened fully, out towards me, but I could see that behind the door, the entire shallow closet was a false front that was now swinging away into the space behind. A slightly pale, thin, 40ish woman with medium-length straight hair, very dark brown eyes, and a somewhat cold, businesslike manner appeared. "In here," she said, as she stepped back to let me in.

I entered. We were in a passageway of some sort in-between walls that weren't even finished on our side. The woman replaced the false door and closet back into their original position and then turned to face me.

"I'm Amanda French." She extended her hand.

I took it. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. French. I'm Ted Giannis."

"Yes. You seem to be looking for something, Mr. Giannis. Do you know what you are looking for?"

"The truth."

"The truth can be a dangerous thing."

"The truth will set you free."

"Or sometimes, the truth can land you in jail. Are you an undercover policeman, Mr. Giannis? A federal agent of some sort?"

"Hardly. Honestly, do I look the type?"

"Honestly, no. But appearances can be deceiving. Let's have it. Why are you here? Who sent you? How did you learn about his place?"

"Nobody sent me. I knew a man named Max Menschlich who mentioned it once, just in passing. I had to piece the rest together. I had a few clues. In college I used to go out with Tajna Bryss, and I once had dinner with Hugh. She said some things back then, things she maybe didn't even completely understand, but that got me started. Mostly, I'm here to learn the truth about the government's use of AI. It starts with the data they collect on people through Sensala, the AI cupid, but I know it's a lot bigger than that."

"What do you know? Or rather, what do you think you know?"

"Look, I figure you must have run some kind of check on me, probably from the I.D. the bartender collected, right? And then Z thought I was worth taking a chance on. I'm on your side. I hate what they're doing to us. I hate what this country's become. I want to help change it. I think you want the same."

"You know Tajna Bryss. That's intriguing. I think you should talk to Roger. May I have your phone please?"

I wasn't sure why she was asking, but I took it out of my pocket and handed it to her without hesitation. Did they need to search it? No matter. They were taking a risk in talking to me, just as I was taking a risk in coming to them. She set my phone on a shelf that I now noticed was on the wall right next to the fake closet door. Of course. If my location was being tracked, I'd still show as in the bathroom.

"This way, please." Amanda led me down the passageway, around a corner, and then down a stairwell that took us below ground to a door. She knocked twice, then opened it.

*******************************

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

-Lao Tzu

"Roger, this is the guy Z buzzed in. ID checks out. Seems clean. He says he knows Tajna Bryss."

Roger was older, maybe 60ish, short and stocky with close-cropped salt and pepper hair that was all salt around the temples. He turned in his chair at the desk where he was sitting to look up at me, peering over his glasses. "Hmmm. That's interesting. What did you say your name was, Mr..."

"Giannis. Ted Giannis." I stuck out my hand. Roger didn't take it, just waved for me to sit in a chair off to the side of his desk. I sat down. Amanda sat also, in another chair a few feet away. She could hear us, but this conversation was clearly going to be primarily between Roger and me.

"So, Mr. Giannis, how do you know Tajna Bryss?"

It seemed if I had any hope of gaining the trust of these people I was going to have to be forthcoming, so I laid it all out. "She and I dated at Cornell, sophomore year. I was her lab partner in Chemistry class. We hit it off. I had no idea who her dad was at the time. He wasn't anywhere near so well known back then."

"How long were you two together?"

"About 10 months. I met her at the start of the year. We got together about a month into the term and stayed together all that year and into the summer. Then, just about three weeks before school was set to start up again, she ghosted me. I got a note saying she couldn't see me anymore and she was sorry. She didn't come back to school, and I never saw her again."

"Please forgive the question, but is it safe to assume you two were...intimate?"

"Yes. We were nineteen...twenty years old. We were intimate many, many times. We were each other's first really serious relationship. Not as serious as I thought, apparently, but we were very close. And yes, I did meet her father."

"Tell me about that."

"Spring break. We went down to New York City. He had an apartment there, just off Central Park. It was the richest place, by far, that I'd ever seen. Before that I'd known her family had money, but I really had no idea it was at that level. He took us to dinner. Only place I ever ate where they had finger bowls. She had to tell me what they were for. I felt terribly out of place."

"I'm sure that was an experience for you, but please try to focus a bit more on your impressions of the man, and anything you learned about his work."

"He struck me as a very self-centered man, and proud, not so much proud of his daughter, but proud of what he had accomplished, what he had built. I think by that time it was probably very clear to him that his fortune was only going to grow much, much larger. It's not that he didn't love his daughter. I think he probably did, at least in his way. It's just that her thoughts and feelings, and her relationship with me, were more of a triviality to him. Given the nature of his company I would have expected him to take a greater interest in us, at least on a professional level if not a personal one, but he really didn't."

Roger scribbled down some notes. While he was scribbling, I thought of something else. "I knew Tajna didn't have a very high opinion of him. She kind of despised him. And I remember thinking at the time that a man who isn't at least a little bit of a hero to his daughter, on some level at least, is probably a piece of shit."

"Hmm. Any other impressions, any other details?"

"Despite knowing how Tajna felt, I remember half hoping he might at least play with the idea of taking me under his wing, finding a place for me in his company, something like that. Tajna and I were pretty serious at that time. But after talking with him I felt very much like he was fairly certain I was not someone who had any chance of being in her life forever."

"Did Hugh, or Tajna, ever say anything about Sensala specifically? They must have said something. As you said, this would have been around 2040, right? That's just before their first government contract."

"He did mention he was in negotiations with the government for a huge contract, but that's all. He didn't give any details in any discussion with me. I only spoke with him over that one dinner, and then briefly the next morning. I stayed at his apartment with Tajna. We slept in the same bed. He was completely cool about that."

"That's not a lot that can help us, Mr. Giannis. What else have you got?"

"It's little things Tajna said here and there that I've turned over and over through the years. You know what her name means?"

"I believe it's the Croatian word for 'secret.'"

"That's right. She told me the day we met. Of course I'd asked. It's an unusual name. I haven't met anyone else with that name before or since. And it made her more interesting, you know? Like why did he name her that? Did he just like the sound of it? Was there more?"

"Do you know for sure that Hugh picked the name? It wasn't her mother?"

"Tajna told me her father had picked her name. Her mother and father were long divorced by the time I knew her, as I'm sure you know. Her mother raised her. But she did visit him for a few weeks every summer. She knew N.C. and the other early founders of the company. She saw all their families at the company picnic. She played with their kids while she stayed at the company's onsite daycare during the days while her dad worked."

"What did she know about the company, about what their moms and dads were doing?"

"She knew they were building an AI dating app. It's not uncommon for kids to play at dating, at being boyfriend/girlfriend, that kind of thing. But at their company daycare they played that all the time. Like All The Time. Tajna said there were even grown ups who would help them play, who would suggest things, and who would sit and take notes. She didn't think anything of it at the time. It was only when she got older that she realized how unusual, even how creepy that was."

"Sorry to ask, but was there anything more...experimental with the kids? Any touching or things of that nature?"

"No. Tajna said there was nothing like that. The adults didn't touch the kids. They didn't encourage the kids to touch each other, either. They just asked them questions about who they 'liked' and why, and then they'd have different games and activities. Then they'd ask them more questions about who they liked and why."

"Interesting. Have you got anything else?"

"Tajna said as she remembered it, she was surprised that hardly any of those adults who worked for her dad, or their kids, ever struck her as especially smart. She thought that was funny, because they were supposed to be building this computer app and service, on the cutting edge of AI technology, and especially the older she got, mostly, with only a couple of exceptions, they seemed to her kind of like doofuses. That was her word. Even her father, she said, was kind of a doofus. She said the kids in her regular school back home in Michigan, where she lived with her mom, were way smarter than the kids of all these supposed geniuses."

"Huh. That is interesting, but I'm not sure it's much more than that."

"Can you answer a couple of questions for me please, Roger?"

"Go ahead and ask. We'll see."

"I want to help fight this. I don't like the way the government's controlling us, the way everything seems to be so managed and manipulated these days. I feel pretty sure Sensala is a big part of that. My experience with Tajna kind of heightened my sensitivity to how maybe it's not all as innocuous and beneficial as it seems, like we're being lied to on a gigantic scale."

"Go on..."

"I was in love with Tajna, and I was pretty sure she was in love with me. The way she dropped me was a mystery that bugged me, and then it just led to more mysteries that bug me. I want to help. Is there a way I can join you? Is there a way you can use me? I figure you must have at least some of the answers I'm seeking, it's just that people don't believe, they aren't ready, and the government seems to be hiding the truth."

"I think I know the answer to this, but are you still single, Mr. Giannis?"

"Yes, I am. Not even a girlfriend. Two relationships since Tajna, both brief. Nobody in the last two years."

"And you're 30 years old and you've never signed up for Sensala?"

"That's correct. I've been pressured. My mother, of course, wants me to, but I've never signed up. I don't feel right about it."

"I think you should."

"You what?"

"I want you to sign up. We will help you craft your profile. Then you can sign up and report to us on how it goes."

"And that will help the cause?"

"It will. After this initial assignment, we'll evaluate and see where things land. Amanda can fill you in on the details. You'll do that, won't you, Amanda?"

Amanda got up from her chair on the other side of the room and walked over to where we were sitting. "Of course, Roger. I'd be happy to. Please come with me, Mr. Giannis."

"Ted. Why don't you call me Ted?"

"As you wish. Follow me, please, Ted."

I followed her through another door in the back corner of Roger's "office," or whatever that room was where we'd been talking. There were a couple of other desks besides Roger's, computers, and a lot of paper files, books, cabinets and gear. The organization of the place seemed haphazard. Clearly people other than Roger also used the space, but I didn't see anyone else. We walked through a longer room that seemed more like a storage area, mostly shelves and boxes, somewhat dimly lit. At the end of the room was another door. I thought Amanda was going to go through it, but suddenly she stopped, as if she'd thought twice about it. She turned to face me.